A medical business is now announcing layoffs that came as a surprise in Minnesota. The company wants to focus on cutting down on service centers and manufacturing sites.
A Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) letter says that ICU Medical plans to close a service and delivery center in Oakdale, Minnesota, and fire all 83 workers there.
Since buying Smiths Medical from London-based Smiths Group in 2022, the company that makes infusion pumps has focused on cutting costs by doing things like merging service centers and production sites.
ICU, which is based in San Clemente, California, shut down the Oakdale site for good after a careful review of its U.S. service operations, the company said in a July 16 WARN letter filed in Minnesota.
ICU’s plan to close its facility is the latest in a string of layoffs that have hurt the medical technology business over the past two years.
MedTech Dive recently looked at WARN filings in state databases and found that since the beginning of 2023, restructurings have caused more than 14,000 people to lose their jobs in the field.
The ICU’s WARN notice, which was given to MedTech Dive by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, says that layoffs at the Oakdale business will start on September 16 and go through December 31.
ICU bought Smiths Medical for $2.35 billion in January 2022, which gave it access to syringes and ambulatory infusion, vascular access, and vital care equipment.
However in 2023, the company had trouble merging the Smiths Medical purchase, and sales went down, leaving the company with a net loss of $29.7 million.
ICU is taking several steps to steady operations and set up the new company for growth.
One of these goals is to get rid of pump service centers and other sites around the world that do the same thing twice. Another is to cut in half the number of industrial sites, from 20 in 2022 to 10 by 2026.
The Minnesota WARN notice said that most of the people who will lose their jobs at the Oakdale service center will be technicians, but there will also be inspectors, supervisors, engineers, and people in other roles.
These workers did not have a group that fought for them.
Also, this spring, Smiths Medical recalled more than 2,900 emergency ventilators in the U.S. because of a problem that was linked to eight major injuries.
